This invention relates to interactive television applications and more particularly to interactive television applications with digital content exporting features.
An interactive television application, such as an interactive program guide, may allow a user to store digital content (e.g., record a program) on a set-top box. The user may access the stored digital content using the interactive television application. However, in some cases, the user may wish to be able to access the digital content away from the interactive television application (e.g., while running or traveling).
In some cases, the nature of the stored digital content (e.g., a recorded program) is such that the audio content may be of greater interest to users. Such digital content may include, for example, a recording of the evening news, a recording of a stand-up comedy routine, or a recording of a sports broadcast (e.g., football). Furthermore, the user may wish to access this audio content away from the interactive television application. For example, the user may wish to listen to the audio of a talk show while jogging.
Therefore, it may be desirable to provide an interactive television application that is capable of extracting audio from recorded programs and transferring the extracted audio to a removable medium (e.g., a CD-R).
The user may also wish to transfer digital content (e.g., a recorded program) to removable media (e.g., a compact flash card). For example, the user may wish to view yesterday's news broadcast on a handheld computer while commuting to work in the morning. It may be burdensome for the user to repeatedly setup transfers using the interactive television application (i.e., selecting digital content, selecting settings, etc.).
Therefore, it may be desirable to provide an interactive television application that may be configured to perform a future transfer of digital content to removable media. After the user has configured the interactive television application to perform a future transfer of digital content to removable media, it may also be desirable to perform the future transfer of digital content to the removable medium without requiring any further user interaction.